There are thousands of options available in the United States stock market in which an investor can invest his money. There are more than twenty thousand publicly traded companies in the stock market in the US. Therefore, it becomes a very difficult task for any investor either a beginner or an experienced one to decide which company to invest in. It is impossible to know the names of all companies then how can it be possible to analyze all of them.So, the question arises, what do people use to decide where to invest and which companies to ignore? The answer is usually derived with something called a stock screener. A stock screener is nothing but a tool which is used by investors to short list the companies which are of their interest and where they can invest their hard earned money. Stock screening is a process of shortlist companies which have the potential to be in your portfolio. This screening is done based on the parameters provided by the investor himself.How the share screener works is very simple. Behind a screener is a huge database which has data about all the publicly traded companies. It contains even the historical data which goes past many years and decades. The investor would log on to the screener and give the parameters which interest him to shortlist the companies. The stock screeners act as search engines and bring out the list of companies which match the criteria provided by the investor. These criteria can be anything like minimum market capitalization, minimum revenue of the company, a particular sector, P/E ratio, profit margin etc.There are various stock screeners available in the market today. Most of them are online tools therefore, you just need a reliable and fast internet connection and you can download the stock screener to your computer. The screener makes use of the back end database and then provides the list of companies as per the criteria given as input.Some of the most popular screeners are available online on websites such as Yahoo Finance stock screener, MSN Money website and the Morning Star internet site. And the good part is that all these screeners are absolutely free of cost. There are basically two types of screeners – basic screener and customizable screener. For a beginner in stock market, the basic screener is sufficient while the customizable stock screener is often used by expert and experienced investors in the stock market.

Portfolio risk software can be a highly useful tool that substantially increases the amount of investment returns you can generate in your portfolio over time. This is something most investors don’t get from their brokers or portfolio managers, yet you can purchase and run it yourself for less than a single share of stock!Here is how this technique works: First, you input your current portfolio’s stocks, bonds, etc. You may need to download or upload some historical market data as well (this is usually the case). This is pretty easy and you can get most of this data for free from Yahoo Finance, Google, etc.Once you have your current positions and historical data in the portfolio risk software, you select your universe of potential other investments available to you. This is the “what if” part of the process the software will use to decide which stocks or bonds are better suited than others, and in what quantities. There may be another data step here as well. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use a bunch of ETFs to act as substitutes for specific stocks or bonds.The next step depends on what you want to accomplish. If you want to create an optimized portfolio, you can tell the software to do a simulation to find the right investments to add or subtract. If you want to find out what might happen if you added 1000 shares of stock X, then select the “what if” computation. If you want to see how your portfolio performed against a benchmark such as the Nikkei 225 or a Gold ETF, you can select the benchmarking analysis. Finally, if you want to know how much your portfolio is likely to gain or lose over a single day, week, or month, you can select the Value at Risk or Expected Return option.Portfolio risk software can be purchased for very little investment, yet it can help generate excellent risk-adjusted returns over time and limit your losses in stressed market conditions. Software packages range from under $25 to over $100,000, depending the type of user you are. For the individual investor, analyst, or student, it’s often best to start on the lower end. There are several tools available for Excel, or as standalone applications that can really help your investing success by providing the analytical capabilities used by Wall Street portfolio managers. If you could increase the probabilities of high returns with limited losses, it could have a tremendous effect on your retirement portfolio over long periods, even if you only get 1% extra per year!Considering the highly effective uses and limited costs, it’s well worth trying out a portfolio risk software package.

“What Obama Must Say Tonight,” “10 Tax Moves to Make in 2010,” and “Ailing Banks Favor Salaries Over Shareholders,” are all examples of the dozens of articles that could be found today at Yahoo! Finance. Yahoo! Finance is a finance website that offers lots of free information and tools all related to finance. There are many websites today that offers resources and tools related to personal finance and investing, so what does Yahoo! Finance have to offer?*Free- Although there are some services available for a fee, accessing the Yahoo! Finance website is free and so is the use of many tools.*Personalized Updates- If you choose to set up an account, you can get personalized updates when you log on about stocks or companies that you’re interested in.*Up to Date- This is one of the best things that sets Yahoo! Finance apart. Market indexes and updates are updated frequently and the “news” is fresh.*At a Glance- You can see Market index averages for the day including the DOW, NASDAQ, S&P 500 and more, as well as graphs showing the trend in these averages for the most recent working day.What’s Up at Yahoo! Finance?In addition to the Yahoo! Finance home page, you can find helpful pages on:-Investing-News and Opinion-Personal Finance-My Portfolios (if you choose to organize your financial information here)- A Tech TickerOn the Investing Pages at Yahoo! Finance:Find out about “Today’s Markets,” including recent earnings statements, recent stock splits and more.Mutual Funds, Stocks, ETFs, Options, Industries and Currencies are all explored furher. Find research, converters, calculators, articles and more.You can also learn more about world stock index levels, world news and exchange rates are under “International.”"Research and Education” offers a business term glossary, personal tutorials on finance and investing and more.Of course Yahoo! Finance also offer “Community,” a section where you can chat, ask questions or join groups.On the Personal Finance Pages at Yahoo! Finance:Get your personal finances organized at “Banking and Budgeting.” Free trials of online bill pay are available. Frequent offers include free for 6 months and $4.95 thereafter.More under Personal Finance…*Insurance*Taxes*Loans*Real estate* Family and Income*RetirementOn the News and Opinion Pages at Yahoo! Finance:Look for articles on…*Industry news*New technology*Top picks by expertsCreating a Yahoo! Finance Account:Creating an account at Yahoo! Finance is easy and free. Once you’ve created an account, you can personalize your logon so that the information that is important to you will be displayed including stock prices and relevant news pertaining to companies you are interested in.The Perks of Yahoo! Finance:Yahoo! Finance visitors and members enjoy that there’s so much financial information in one place and that the articles and financial charts on Yahoo! Finance are kept up to date. They also like that so many of the services available are free. Visitors also applaud Yahoo! for having limited ads.Popular Tools at Yahoo! Finance:There are rate charts and calculators for Mortgage, Home Equity, Savings, Auto Loans and Credit Cards for fixed loans and ARMs. You can see rates across the country as well view rates in your area.What’s not to love about Yahoo! Finance?While many users like the non-nonsense format at Yahoo! Finance, others find the finance web sites look to be drab, boring and unexciting with little more than two colors, black and blue, a limited photos.Still, Yahoo! Finance is recommended as a finance website that has a lot of helpful tools and resources that are well organized, up to date and more than not, free.